Danish company develops an anti-drone system for stadiums and prisons

Stadiums and prisons are some of the sites that are at risk of drones visiting them for illegal purposes. MyDefence Communication in Aalborg has developed a system that prevents this from occurring. The system is now being used with support from the EU.

Drones are an innovative tool that can be used to carry, for example, a camera that can take aerial photos. Drones are predicted to have a bright future when it comes to acting as carriers of other objects. However, drones can unfortunately also be used for illegitimate purposes. In Iraq, the Islamic State has been using drones carrying explosives on the battlefield, and in Denmark, we have already seen cases where it was attempted to smuggle in items for inmates in prison. Recently, PET has warned that, in principle, drones could be used to carry out simple terror attacks in Denmark as well.

The countermeasures that can counteract the illegal use of drones are therefore in high demand. It is such countermeasures that the Danish company, MyDefence Communication, has specialized in developing – and with such great success that the systems have been presented to NATO and will be paired with drone-solutions coming from Lockheed Martins.

Most recently, MyDefence has been granted support from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme that aims to enhance research and innovation. The support has been given to the tests for the systems in 2 prisons and 2 stadiums in Denmark and England, respectively.

”We look forward to demonstrating our system on a larger scale. The technology is in place, but with the EU project, we will have the opportunity to optimize it and prepare it for the market,” says CEO in MyDefence Communication, Christian Steinø.

Game changer

The anti-drone system, called KNOX, monitors the airspace over a specific site. If a foreign object enters the airspace immediately above the site, a jamming is initiated which prevents the drone operator from controlling the drone. At the same time, an alarm goes off that indicates where the drone operator is located.

The product maturation for KNOX involves fine-tuning the system to find a specific drone signal at a stadium where there are thousands of other signals from, among others, mobile phones and radios. Subsequently, the specific drone signal – and no other signals – must be manipulated so that the drone flies away or is prevented from, for example, using a camera to transmit data.

”We consider the technology behind KNOX to be a game changer because we do not simply stop at intercepting signals, as the current solutions on the market do, but we are capable of jamming the drone signal and thereby blocking it,” says Christian Steinø.

The solution can be scaled up or down, depending on the size of the site. It is relatively inexpensive and is primarily intended for sites where large crowds of people gather or where critical infrastructure is placed – for example, a power plant.

More about the project

MyDefence was founded in 2009 with the vision of wanting to ”protect those that protect us.” MyDefence’s mission is to develop new technologies, focusing on reducing the size, weight and power consumption of carried and mobile products that are to be used against roadside bombs and drones.